Thursday, February 15, 2007

Australia's prime minister, John Howard has got that 5 a.m. gambler’s stale sweat tang seeping out of his pores, and those who once praised him as the greatest PM since Menzies are now stepping around his quivering shadow. This gambler’s luck has run out, the bar’s cut him off, and he still needs to turn his last $2 coin into a taxi fare home. The bouncers are ready to toss this loser out into the bright dawn.

But even the bookies won’t now extend Howard the courtesy of easy confidence. They’ve turned on him, and fast :

Since Mr Rudd took over from Kim Beazley in December, Centrebet’s odds for a Labor election win have shortened from $2.75 to $1.80, while the Coalition’s have blown out from $1.40 to $1.90.

International All Sports, another online betting agency, also has Labor as favourites - $1.85 compared with the Coalition’s $1.95.

However Sportingbet still has the Coalition in front - $1.85 compared with Labor’s $1.95.

Watch those Sportingbet numbers change quick smart on the back of the next Newspoll.

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Watching Howard sink into his own muck is like watching your sherry-soaked granddad making a fool of himself at a family gathering.

It’s fun for a while, and as long as granddad keeps his pants on, and doesn’t go near the BBQ, you know he can only cause so much damage.

Soon enough, he’ll be out on his feet, snoring away in front of the cricket. He’s old, you might only get a few more chances to watch the crazy old bastard in full flight.

Why wrestle him to the ground now and spoil everyone’s fun? Let him go off for a while, at least until the snags are cooked.

Howard has ranted for three solid days about the supposed apocalyptic fallout from a troop withdrawal, which is now very likely to come from US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, and President Bush himself, beginning in late 2007.

He has shouted himself hollow in a pathetically desperate effort to resuscitate the decomposing corpse that is the NeoCon wet-dream horror-fantasy of thousands of jihadi-crazed Iraqi insurgents sweeping out of the Middle East like a plague of turbaned locusts on the back of an American defeat in Iraq.

Howard has, of course, added the local angle, threatening every Australian with bomb-packed terrorists lusting to splatter us all across the sails of the Opera House.